Jetstar freezes contract hirings to buy peace
Steve Creedy, Aviation writer From: The Australian May 23, 2011 12:00AM
JETSTAR has moved to head off a stoush with its pilots by putting on hold plans to put new hires on permanent part-time contracts.
But it has warned that a decision to freeze new recruitment while it negotiates with pilots may mean growth at the low-cost carrier is deferred.
News of the contracts triggered widespread anger among the low-cost carrier's pilots, prompted legal action by the Australian Federation of Air Pilots and threatened to embroil the Qantas Group in another public battle over industrial relations.
Qantas is already facing industrial action from engineers and long-haul pilots, who are expected to apply to Fair Work Australia early this week for a ballot of members for approval to take industrial action.
Jetstar pilots were incensed by the moves to put new hires on a group contract outside the enterprise agreement that guaranteed employment for just 600 hours instead of the 800-plus Jetstar pilots generally work.
Jetstar management argues the flexibility is essential to continued growth and that it needs to match pilot workload to seasonal traffic and to move pilots around the multinational group. It says it has been trying to get an agreement on the issues for three years.
But pilots viewed the move as a betrayal of the agreement and more than 300 emailed management with their concerns.
In a memo obtained by The Australian, Jetstar Group chief executive Bruce Buchanan and Australia/New Zealand chief David Hall say the airline has decided to freeze Australian recruitment until September 1. It would also withdraw active offers of the new contract and move five first officers who had already accepted the enterprise agreement.
The memo says the company is holding talks with the AFAP and is hopeful it can quickly find a path that solves its business requirements and the desire of the pilot group to employ Australian pilots through a single enterprise agreement and it can lift the freeze earlier than September 1.
"The recruitment freeze may have (an) impact on capacity plans for this year, and there may be some deferral of growth while we work through this process," it says. "We believe our actions are a constructive step towards reaching agreement on flexibility . . .
"To continue to sustainably grow, we need to resolve these issues, otherwise we will be unable to continue the same level of growth."
Freeze AUSTRALIAN recruitment is what the memo says. Nothing about NZ and Jetstar Asia!! It seems that the line training of NZ and Singapore pilots will continue in Australian aircraft as the company does not see the problem here.
Pilots flying Australian aircraft in Australia require an Australian contract!
Also, putting the 5 guys on the EBA and withdrawing other offers technically means they have no case to answer in court since they are seen to have rectified the wrong - FOR NOW!!!
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The Kelpie
I am assuming that any changes to the EBA will need to be voted on by the membership?